Lalu Express popular, populist

Presenting his fifth consecutive Rail Budget, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav today played to the gallery by unveiling some populist proposals - cuts in passenger fares to take on low-cost airlines, no hike in freight rates (see chart) - and, unlike last year, did not spend much time tom-tomming about the cash surplus. Instead, he chose to deliver a speech targeting the ordinary passenger, coming up with some ideas which promise to improve functioning of the Railways.

To set the house in order, Lalu, for the first time, announced that on-board cleaning on all Rajdhani, Shatabdi, superfast Mail and Express trains will be done by professional agencies which will provide trained personnel and equipment for the job. With this, Lalu managed to outsource train cleaning to private players.

FARES REDUCED AC-1 7% AC-II 4% Rider: Reduction would be halved during peak periods and in popular trains CASH SURPLUS BEFORE DIVIDEND in 2007-08 (Rs crore) 25,000 Reduced fares, increased volumes and profit

Given the deep penetration of mobile phones in the country, Lalu said his Ministry was exploring the option of issuing reserved and unreserved rail tickets through mobile phones. The Railways also plans to issue wait listed e-tickets.

He unveiled an interesting plan to absorb licensed porters in railways without creating new posts. The plan is to organise a one-time recruitment process wherein licensed porters would be appointed as gangmen or given Group D posts after a screening process. Since the Railways plan to promote a large number of gangmen to gatemen at manned level crossings, porters will fill up the gangmen posts that will fall vacant. The railway network has around 38,000 licensed porters, many of whom stand to gain from the scheme.

A 50 per cent concession in second class passenger fares for HIV/AIDS infected persons, travelling to nominated ART centres for treatment, is another move that will earn public goodwill for the Railways. Reaching out to the masses, Lalu announced a plan to provide platform shelters in smaller stations. As many as 748 `D` category stations and all `B` category



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